Reti's Queen Sacrifice · 1910
22% of club players play Bf4+ here — and it misses a forced mate in 1
rnbk1b1r/pp3ppp/2p5/4q3/4n3/8/PPPB1PPP/2KR1BNR w - - 0 1022% of players rated around 1500 play Bf4+
in this position. It is the natural move, and it is not the best one.
| Move | Played by | Evaluation |
|---|---|---|
Bf4+ the reflex | 22% of 1500-rated humans | -669 centipawns |
Bg5+ the move | 13% | mate in 1 and it is mate |
The move is Bg5+, which forces mate in 1. The reflex does not — it leaves an ordinary position. — a discovered check.
How this was checked
The evaluations are Stockfish. The human percentages are
Maia, a neural network trained on millions of human games and
conditioned on rating — so 22% of players around 1500
is a measurement of what people
actually do, not an estimate of what they might. Any tactical motif named above is verified against
the board geometry rather than described.
Paste a chess.com game you played and ChessCast makes a 10-20 minute coaching podcast about it — two hosts on the audio, and a board that moves in lock-step so you can watch the moment it turned. Every claim is checked against Stockfish before it is spoken.